Start of Something Beautiful
by MashPotatoeSquishBanana
Summary: AU Makorra. Korra's nervous. She finally got asked out by the guy of her dreams but somehow, she manages to ruin everything by sheer bad luck and a tad of clumsiness! Can they salvage the night before everything that could have been is lost? *some swearing*


**Hi everyone! So this is my first LoK fic. Go easy on me okay! **

**Out of all the pairings, my favourite is definitely Makorra, but I have nothing against Korra/ Bolin, Bolin/ Asami and Tenzin/ Lin. (I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of now).**

**Hope you enjoy and tell me what you think at the end :)**

Korra was nervous. She was so nervous that she was shaking with adrenaline. Mako had asked her out. Mako, the handsome head detective of the Republic City Police Force, second to Lin Beifong, Chief of Police. Mako, the guy she'd been in love with since high school. Mako, the guy whom she had silently observed (fine, _stalked_) ever since they has graduated from Republic High. Mako, the officer who had arrested her for 'suspiciously lurking late at night and then rectified his mistake by asking her out to dinner.

Only Korra, the silly girl, had instead promised him a monstrous home cooked water tribe style buffet.

Mako knew how his younger and famous movie star brother Bolin loved water tribe food, so he decided to take her up on that offer. Korra had called her mother Senna to have help preparing the food, until Senna had given up on her impossible daughter.

* * *

"Korra, sweetie, try _mashing _the potato, not throttling it."

"Mom, I know what I'm doing."

"Okay, then, sweetie."

_- five minutes later –_

"Korra, what have you _done_?"

"This is – it's the potato!"

"It looks like what you used to throw up when you were a baby. Do you actually expect him to eat something that resembles vomit?"

"Shut up, mom."

* * *

They eventually whipped something up in the last minute, thank god, because just as Senna was leaving, another Satomobile pulled into the driveway.

Korra panicked. Nothing was nearly ready. She wearing her sweaty everyday clothes, and her hair was probably a mess. The gravy was on the stove, and couldn't be left unattended otherwise it would go lumpy. There was a knock at the door, and Korra bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

She stood behind the door, took a deep breath, and opened it.

There stood the guy who had haunted her fantasies for so many years of her life. His hair was spiked up in the same way it had been in high school, and Korra's heart stuttered. He was just too… too… and he hadn't even dressed up or anything!

"Uh… Mako! You're early!" Korra exclaimed, rubbing the back of her neck, sure that her face was now red instead of its usual mocha colour.

Mako glanced at his watch and frowned. "Just by a few minutes. Sorry. Should I wait outside…?"

"No, no, of course not!" Korra said. She opened the door wider and invited him in.

Would Mako mind if she left in front of the TV while she took a quick shower and changed into the pretty white dress she had planned on wearing?

"Please, come in," she ushered, and cringed behind his back when a pair of dirty, lazily discarded undies loomed up around the corner, carelessly left on the floor. Why hadn't Senna warned her about this?

Blushing as red as the scarf he wore (one she recognised from their days at school), Korra darted forward and scooped them up, putting her hands behind her back and mentally calling herself every bad name she'd ever heard. Mako had a small smile hovering around his lips, and his amber eyes twinkled with mirth.

"I am _so_ sorry," Korra said. "I honestly expected another ten minutes…"

Mako chuckled. "Ten minutes to clean the house, finish dinner, and get ready?"

"Okay, so maybe I was a tiny bit off schedule," Korra laughed.

"Do you want to finish getting ready? I can just hang out here…" Mako put his hand uncertainly on the arm of the couch. Korra desperately hoped there weren't any old chips in the cushions that would crunch when he sat down.

It really wasn't her fault that her apartment was a pig sty, though. She was away for six days of the week at work, and when she did come home on Sunday, she slept through the day and half the night and spent the early hours of Monday morning packing for work again.

"I'll be quick," Korra promised, backing down the hall until he was out of sight, then turning and scampering into her bedroom and shutting the door. Once the door was closed firmly, she whirled around and took a deep breath. Mako was _in her house._ Watching TV only a few metres away.

Shit. _Shit. _

_shitshitshitshit – _

_Calm down. He's just a guy. A seriously cute guy who you've liked for years. No biggie._

She decided she didn't have enough time for a shower, but she splashed some water on her face, ripped a brush through her hair, and threw on the outfit, not caring at the moment that it was the tiny bit crumpled (all this after depositing the dirty undies into the wash, of course. She could only be thankful that they were black, and not white).

The dress was cream coloured with lace trimming around the high neckline and it came conservatively to her lower thigh. The stretchy cotton material hugged her curvy figure gorgeously, hiding the slight imperfections, and the cream colour contrasted with her mocha skin and highlighted her blue eyes.

Korra spent a few seconds in front of the mirror admiring her reflection, and then suddenly couldn't wait to go see Mako.

She decided against shoes. Keep it casual.

She exited the room, and went to find her date. He wasn't in the lounge room, where she had left him.

"Mako?" she called, wondering where he could have gone. It wasn't that big of an apartment. Maybe he had gone to the bathroom?

"Here!" his call came from the kitchen. Korra began to get a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She padded into the kitchen and stared with horror at the scene. Mako was tending to a blackened hump of meat that had once been a beautifully seasoned roast pork, and their dinner. Korra groaned and buried her face in her hands. She had also forgotten about that dratted gravy. It was no longer brown, more greyish, really, and it was bubbling over the sides of the saucepan, spreading over the stove top.

She just knew she was going to have nightmares for the rest of her life about this disastrous first date, and the look of pity on Mako's face.

"This was a mistake," she said, her words slightly muffled. "I'm so sorry. It's a sign. You should go before anything else goes wrong."

She felt him come up beside her, and pull her hands from her face.

"You're right," he said softly, and she gasped quietly. Was this the end of their relationship before it had even started? Korra felt the beginnings of a long and painful heartache. "It _is _a sign. That we should order pizza instead."

The relief that he was not going to leave was so great that Korra began to laugh, and hiccup embarrassingly, but when Mako joined in as well, laughing along with her, she felt like she was truly at home.

* * *

"And to this day, nobody actually knows who the guy in the picture was!" Mako said, grinning as he put his phone away after showing Korra the picture that had them both cracking up. Korra was laughing so hard she choked on her slice of pizza and made a funny snorting sound, and that set them off again.

"I can't believe Bolin's movie career didn't shrivel and die after being caught butt naked by paparazzi!" Korra gasped, her cheeks hurting from smiling.

"But notice how in every single one, they never caught his face. I've always naturally assume it was actually Tano," Mako said, downing the last of his soda. "Can you imagine that?"

The mental image of the renowned bad boy running through mobs of photographers at a red carpet movie premiere sans clothes was enough to make another round of giggles bubble up in her chest. She was sure she was drunk – not on alcohol, since they were drinking Coke, but on happiness. How many hours had she spent dreaming about a date with Mako? The real thing was so much better than her fantasies.

"In comparison to _your _senior year, mine was plain boring!" Korra said, her side cramped. She hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. Mako was just… he just made her laugh.

"So you're saying that absolutely nothing interesting happened at all for you? For some reason, I seemed to think you had a wild senior year, Korra," Mako raised an inquisitive eyebrow and grabbed another slice.

Both of them had completely forgotten about Korra's failed roast pork. This was so much better.

"Well, there was that incident at Asami Sato's Halloween party," Korra said. "You were actually there, so I don't know whether you remember or not."

Mako cast his mind back to senior year, and he dimly remembered Asami Sato, a girl he'd dated simply because she was nice and popular and pretty. After a few months, he had realised that while she was beautiful, and rich, and fun, she just wasn't The One. They'd broken up on good terms, and remained friends until graduation. They had parted ways and not contacted each other since graduation. Mako was disappointed to be reminded of an old girlfriend when he was having so much fun with Korra, the girl he'd always thought of as loud mouthed, rude and tomboyish, but had never even spoken with her before he'd nearly arrested her.

He had judged her too harshly. She was great fun, really pretty when he actually opened his eyes, and a super athlete, something he could respect because to be the city's highest ranking detective, one had to be in superb physical shape.

"I don't remember you being at that party," Mako frowned.

"You might better know me as the Weedy Monster of Sato Lake," Korra said dryly.

"No way!"

"Way."

"The mystery is solved!" Mako exclaimed. "Did you know that you became an urban legend?"

"Trust me," Korra chuckled. "I know all too well."

* * *

The night, unfortunately, came to a close. The hours had seemed to fly by as Korra and Mako exchanged funny stories, interesting ideas, advice on problems, gossiped about people from Republic High, and finished off their pepperoni and cheese pizza. The time came for Mako to leave, and Korra wondered if this was a one- time thing; if she would ever see him again.

At the front door, they both hesitated. Korra stood in the doorway, and Mako stood on the other side of the threshold, hands thrust awkwardly in his jeans pockets.

"So…" he trailed off. "Thanks for a great night," he said eventually.

Korra smiled up at him, suddenly shy. "Thank _you _for coming, and I'm glad we had pizza instead of that stupid roast pork."

A breeze ruffled his hair, and she found herself wondering if it was too soon in their relationship to start kissing.

"It should become a tradition," he said, his voice gone soft and fond.

Korra's breath sped up. Did that mean…?

"How about we try the seafood supreme tomorrow night?" Mako asked, almost shyly.

Korra tapped him on the chest to disguise her nervousness. "Are you asking me out for real this time, city boy?"

"I guess I am," he smiled down at her.

"Your place? I can't be bothered cleaning up."

"You didn't clean up for tonight either," he pointed out.

"Besides, it's my turn to see your place," she went on.

"It's nothing fancy, just simple and small."

"For god sakes, are you hosting a freaking cannabis lab in there?"

"Um… no," Mako looked at her strangely.

"So there's no problem with me coming at around six?" Korra ran a finger down his chest, winding the end of his red scarf around her finger.

Mako caught her hand against his chest, and she froze at his touch. "No problem at all."

There was a moment of stillness between them, like they didn't realise that what should happen next was staring them in the face.

Finally, Korra couldn't take it anymore. She stood up on her tip toes and kissed him full on the mouth. He seemed surprised at first (as if he hadn't already been thinking about it) but kissed her back. She cheekily bit his lip to keep him from pulling away too soon, and he chuckled. When the kiss ended, his cheeks were flushed and Korra's heart was pounding in her chest. "What's the big idea, city boy?" she frowned mockingly. "I was just getting comfortable."

"I'll see you tomorrow night," he grinned, gave her another peck on the lips, and turned to walk back to his Satomobile, the sight of his tall, lean, athletic frame loping down her driveway making Korra's heart melt, like it had been doing for years every time she saw him.

"I look forward to it!" she yelled, waving like a maniac.

Mako started the engine, beeped the horn twice, and pulled out of the driveway.

In shock, she retreated inside her apartment, shut the door and stood dazed for a few moments. Then she squealed, spun once, narrowly avoided knocking over a small table in the hallway, and hugged herself before falling onto the couch where _he _had sat (in her subconscious mind, she was relieved that nothing had crunched when she sat on it).

Korra was sure that this thing with Mako wasn't just a mutual attraction. They had chemistry. They _worked_.

She was sure that it was the start of something beautiful and exciting, and she couldn't wait until tomorrow night.

**Unspeakably terrible? Amazingly magnificent? I'm always open for constructive criticism. Also, keep your eyes open for the second chapter which might happen if I get enough response!**

**Until next time, **

**MashPotatoeSquishBanana :)**


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